


Shall Shed My Light Over Dark Evil

by xDinahQueenx



Category: Criminal Minds, DC Comics
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:33:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xDinahQueenx/pseuds/xDinahQueenx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a story often shrouded in tragedy, an origin that's only path is this: death, passing the burden, and another shouldering a great responsibility.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shall Shed My Light Over Dark Evil

**Author's Note:**

> Written for starfyre76s birthday. XD I told her this was what I was going to write. I used Alan's oath because I feel it fits better.

It was all over the news, when the invasion began. And despite the scientific minded, the way people refused to believe it was happening even when it _was_ , well, that just made it worse. The television played as an incredulous announcer spoke about ships on the horizon; their non-Euclidean designs suggesting something otherworldly. And then there were the reports... of conspiracy theories, of shadowy underground organizations of self-styled superheroes who were there to protect them. Aaron had never put much stock in those sort of theories, because everyone knew that superheroes were the things of movies and picture books and nothing near approaching reality. Of course, opinions were easy to change when faced with new evidence. 

So while the news spoke almost non-stop about the alien invasion, the _other_ topic of conversation was this suddenly making themselves known group of superheroes. They had aliens amongst them too, though claiming to be the good kind, and they promised that they would save humanity, despite the outcry of people everywhere for their secrecy up until then. 

News outlets blamed these heroes for the invasion, others likened them unto Gods, and as the alien forces slowly moved closer to the Earth, life went on. News had gone to a very one-track sort of thing, but well- it was to be expected. In New Hampshire, they profiled and caught a serial killer who used numerology to choose his victims, so long as his signature was compatible with them- gender, age, race, looks didn't matter. 

The government claimed to have everything under control and that some of the heroes had gone to the upper atmosphere to repel the fleet. It didn't work. 

A breaking news report interrupted the cartoons that Aaron was watching with Jack to show the fiery remains of what used to be Miami. Smoke billowed and fires still burned, emergency services rushing to try and find people amid the rubble. 

A week after that, a garbled but translated message reached the Earth, demanding resources. Food, specifically. But they didn't want the animals or the vegetables on the planet- their particular palate had developed a taste for human flesh. The team was in Los Angeles, profiling a serial killer that dressed the men he killed up like policeman before meeting a violent end at the end of a knife. 

It was at the end of a long day, where they'd met a dead end with their leads, and Aaron had suggested sleeping, for fresh eyes in the morning. It was some time in the middle of the night when an intense light and a voice in his head woke him. He thought, at first, it was merely a dream. But when his eyes slit open, there was definitely a green glow emanating, and a voice coaxing him to come with him. 

Aaron closed his eyes and tried to will it away. (It was the weirdest manifestation of his own stress he'd ever seen.) Or maybe it was just a dream. He wasn't entirely sure what caused him to get out of his bed and follow. There was no way he could not... curiosity drew him from his room, down the hall, and out into the fields behind the hotel, where the alley formed deep shadows. 

There was a man in a worn leather jacket, brown hair falling in to his eyes, and the color drained from his face as some strange protrusion in his side made a green shield flicker, and Aaron couldn't tell if he could help but he figured that was his duty. He knelt beside him to remove the object- but it burned like fire and he jerked his hands backwards. 

"I'm dying," The man said, his voice weak and strained, and Aaron frowned.

"I will call the hospital, you'll be fine." Aaron's voice was steady, but when he went for his phone, the man's hand shot out and caught his wrist.

"There's no time. The ring chose you and it's never wrong." He said weakly. He didn't try and sit up, and overhead, a streak of yellow light like a shooting star passed them over. The man closed his eyes briefly, breathing shallow. "I'll make this fast." He said. 

There was a moment of silence, where Aaron stayed crouched down beside him, hand hovering in mid-air, the sounds of the city close by, and Aaron was focused on the breathing of the other man. But he didn't understand- The Ring? But as if on cue, a green ring floated in front of him, the double line and circle pattern unlike anything he'd seen. 

"My name is Hal Jordan and this was my sector. My fellow Green Lanterns and I partner up and patrol this sector of space; to defend against the threat of injustice. But I... I came up to an opponent that I couldn't beat and my back-up was too busy fighting off the alien invasion." Hal explained, pausing between words- sometimes slipping in to seconds of silence. 

"They will take you to Oa, where you'll learn all you need to know but..." Hal trailed off as the yellow returned and Aaron could make out that there was a man inside. Hal's eyes fluttered closed, then, breathing going even slower. 

"In brightest day..." He murmured, then- "Put the ring on, Aaron Hotchner, and take your place. Join the fight, and everything will soon make sense." Hal explained. "There's other Earthling lanterns and they can show you things, tell you things. You have... great willpower. You... have to fight." 

Aaron frowned and hesitated, looking at the ring floating in front of him. Hal's eyes didn't open again. "Please..." He finally said, in a voice so quiet it was almost inaudible over the noise of the road. Aaron's hand hovered- and then he reached out and grabbed the ring, fingers closing around it. He slipped the ring on.

"Power level at 62%." A voice said- coming from the ring, and then it continued- "Proximity Alert- Sinestro." Aaron shot Hal a bewildered look that Hal did not see. 

"Tell Carol..." But whatever it was that he wanted Carol to know, he never finished the sentence. And a flash of yellow energy lanced at him, breaking the shield, but not getting to him. It reformed in a moment, and the ring fed him a crash course. Aaron summoned up his will. 

As the black, white, and green costume began to cover his clothes, he could feel his mind steeling for a fight. The oath suddenly echoed in his head, and when Sinestro barreled for him, he sent a wash of green energy flooding the area. Hal's body remained beside him and he made a quiet promise to find the man's friends- _somehow_. 

The ring told him how to fly and the ring gave him a rundown on Sinestro's crimes. Aaron was an office of the law- intergalactic and Earthbound, it seemed. So steeling himself once more- he shot into the air after the enemy of the Green Lantern Corps, and wondered if he should tell someone what had happened. 

They'd never believe it. 

And for now, a criminal needed capturing, and Aaron was just the man to do it.


End file.
